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Source: Larry, a Biography of Lawrence D. BellBell won the competition by four-tenths of a point, 72 to 71.6, out of a possible 100 points. The clincher appearently was the big twin guns aboard the Airacuda. Lockheed's aircraft had two 1,000-horsepower Allison engines, as did the Airacuda, but it had only one cannon. Lockheed held the edge in engineering, but Bell scored 19.3 to 15.6 in military characteristics.
That is close...It was a narrowly-won contest by the FM-1 - four-tenths of a point on a 100-point scale.
So military characteristics means the planes ability to be used as a weapons platform, engineering means it was better designed and more rugged?Lockheed held the edge in engineering, but Bell scored 19.3 to 15.6 in military characteristics.
Was the traversable gun a requirement on either design or was that simply a choice on behalf of Bell?The primary mission of the FM program was to intercept bombers - the idea being with the 37mm cannons to sit about 2 miles behind the enemy bomber formation and lob shells at will, well outside their defensive turret range.
You're right. I can't find any designation for the circular proposal, but the idea appears to have been started by a letter written in early 1935 by Captain Harry A. Johnson to Major General Benjamin Foulis recommending a heavily-armed super fighter capable of destroying bombers. The new plane would have the new designation "FM" for "fighter, multi-place".
It was a different era, and dreams of designers were not realistic as these fanciful covers of magazines of the time show.
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They probably picked the Martin B-10 because it was faster than the operational fighters of the time. Still, the idea of an aerial-defense gunship is kind of a flawed idea unless perhaps you have lasers (YAL-1).vikingBerserker said:It actually started several years before that in 1933. On January 9th, 1933, a directive for a multi-seat fighter was submitted to the Pursuit Board at Wright Field and on March 22nd 1933, the Material Division at Wright Field issued Engineering Section Memorandum Report B-51-104 entitled "Modification of Martin B-10 Airplane To A Multi-Seat Fighter.
I'm not sure if this was touched upon before, but how did it work? Was it a lead-computation device, or did it somehow work by identifying light contrast (i.e. aircraft block out light presenting a dark spot), or some mix of both?The thermionic director was mounted in the nose. It's optic looks like a light centered in the nose window.